Most thorax airbags, or “thorax bags” for short, are housed in a seat back according to examples that have become known in practice. Here one distinguishes among several types:
Manufacturers of OPEL brand cars, CITROEN brand cars, and other manufacturers of cars position the airbag module in a visible container, whose cover opens in a crash. This looks cheap and the container is heavy and expensive.
Other manufacturers, primarily luxury-car manufacturers install an “invisible”airbag under the covering material. Because the covering materials with their different elasticity values counteract the unfolding with different amounts of resistance, and thus prolong the unfolding time, the manufacturers provide various measures. The manufacturer of VW brand cars, for example, uses only low-stretch materials. The manufacturer of FORD brand cars sews a woven packing for the tearing seam of the covering with a hard material in the bursting area. The manufacturer of RENAULT brand cars has a divided side wall with an inserted frame through which the bag is deployed.
The inventor himself has already solved the problem of low-stretch materials with the “run technique,” which is disclosed in the already granted U.S. Pat. No. 6,299,197 and the parallel, laid-open German Patent Application No. 198 60 840.3. The complete disclosure contents from these earlier applications, especially in terms of the triggering and deployment of the thorax airbag from a seat through a seat covering, are incorporated completely into the present document through this reference, to avoid simple repetition.